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With help from Doug Palmer and Steven Overly
Editor’s Note: Weekly Trade is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro’s daily Trade policy newsletter, Morning Trade. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
Mobile slaughtering units, on-farm facilities could open bottleneck in meat processing
Jan Shepel
Two direct-to-consumer livestock farmers were part of a special “meating” organized by Wisconsin Farmers Union which drew 114 participants in the on-line forum and on the phone January 14 as they discussed the bottleneck posed by an increasingly overloaded meat processing system in Wisconsin.
The “meating” is part of a series of planned online events. Last week’s covered mobile slaughtering and on-farm solutions. The next meeting is January 28 on cooperative and community solutions. Others are planned in February, March and April. To see more on these events go to www.wisconsinfarmersunion.com/processing.
Wausau Pilot & Review Open Search Wisconsin farmers: Fixing farm finances will improve mental health Some farmer advocates are pushing for supply management systems that could raise milk prices and reduce volatility
By Jack Kelly
For Wisconsin Watch
Dairy farmers and farmer advocates say Wisconsin can’t solve its mental health crisis among farmers without addressing the “systemic” financial issues they face.
“Throwing money at farmer mental health isn’t going to help if we don’t work on the systemic issues that are at the root of this whole situation,” said Danielle Endvick, communications director of Wisconsin Farmers Union, which advocates on behalf of family farmers and rural communities.
Conversations with 10 current and former family dairy farmers in Wisconsin revealed that work days, which often start before the sun rises and end well after it sets, are jam packed with stressors that make coping difficult.
‘The happiness and joy has been sucked out of me’: Wisconsin dairy farmers face mental health crisis
Many Wisconsin milk producers are overwhelmed, dogged by financial worries, a crushing workload, labor shortages and bad weather
January 16, 2021 9:19 AM Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Posted:
Amy Fischer is seen with a photo of her son, Brian, on her family s 350-cow dairy farm, Darian Acres, in Rio, Wis., on Dec. 18, 2020. Brian died by suicide at the age of 33, on Dec. 21, 2016. The Fischers attribute his death to a combination of stress from work, a drinking problem and depression from a recent break-up. Dairy farmers and their advocates say numerous stressors are leading to a mental health crisis in their industry, including financial pressures, long hours, labor shortages and harsh weather.